March 2, 2004
RED EGGS AND HAM (via The Mother Judd):
Laughter's Perennial at the Doctor's Seussentennial (DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, 3/02/04, NY Times)
To make money during the Depression, [Theodore] Geisel signed on as the advertising cartoonist for Standard Oil of New Jersey and other companies. His moment of creative epiphany came in 1936 when crossing the Atlantic aboard the Kungsholm. Annoyed by the ship's engine's anapestic rhythm, he decided to embrace it, using its incessant beat to help him compose his first children's book, "And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (1937).Although this tall tale of a boy named Marco was rejected by 27 publishers, it was eventually bought by Vanguard Press, a division of Houghton Mifflin. Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit, praised it as near-perfect art. Geisel, using the pseudonym Dr. Seuss — his mother's maiden name — was on his way to becoming America's most popular children's book author.
Today Dr. Seuss's 44 books have been translated into 21 languages, selling more than 500 million copies. "We're even in Braille," Ms. Geisel said from her home here, an old observation tower overlooking the Pacific, where her husband did his illustrations. A private man, during his lifetime Geisel never sold his art; he was a pack rat who hoarded everything. "No house could hold all of Ted's stuff," Ms. Geisel said. "So I'm happy it's all found the perfect home."
The home she is referring to is the postmodern Geisel Library at the university, where the Dr. Seuss Collection is now open to scholars. There are more than 8,000 archived items on file, including a 1921 program from a minstrel show written by a precocious 17-year-old Geisel, "Chicopee Surprised," and the original sketches of "The Cat in the Hat."
Anyone interested in the evolution of Geisel's art can study his notebooks, begun while an Oxford student. During World War II he served in the United States Army Signal Corps and Information and Educational Division, under Frank Capra; his hundreds of propaganda cartoons from that period are still riveting to see. "What has me most excited is that the Seussean papers are right next to those of Jonas Salk" in the Geisel library archives, Ms. Geisel said with a laugh. "Unlike Salk's papers, the Seussean files are all out of order. The archivists are perplexed why things keep jumping out of place. It makes perfect sense to me."
Ms. Geisel, a former nurse who today oversees Dr. Seuss Enterprises, is quick to point out that if you cannot make it to La Jolla — or Springfield for that matter, where the museum is currently exhibiting "The Art of Dr. Seuss" — you can follow the centennial happenings on the Seussville Web site (www.seussville.com), maintained by his publisher, Random House, and which receives some 100,000 hits daily.
Obviously by the time he was doing the stuff about Sneeches and Butter Battles (pro-nuclear freeze), he'd descended into PC drivel, but yesterday on NPR they mentioned that even the Who's, in Horton Hears a Who, are the Japanese, about to be atom bombed. Wanker.
MORE:
Why we love Dr. Seuss (in a few words) (Maria Puente, Craig Wilson and Mary Cadden, 3/01/04, USA TODAY)
I always equate the Whos with the unborn. Not that I thought he meant that, but that's how I always saw it.
Posted by: NKR at March 2, 2004 11:20 AMIn fact, Giesel did NOT see the Whos as the unborn; according to one biography (wish I could remember its name) he took legal action against a pro-life group promoting itself with the phrase "a person's a person, no matter how small."
To his credit, Giesel avoided ideology in his children's books, until some of the didactic efforts at the end of his life. Someone in the 'Seventies he got an angry missive from NOW demanding that the line "Even Jane could think of that" be removed from AND TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET; they might have even asked for a recall of earlier volumes containing the line. Giesel responded in the only dignified way possible: he ignored it completely.
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at March 2, 2004 11:30 AMBlimey. First 'poof', now 'wanker'.
Your British slang is coming along bloody nicely, me old china.
And I thought this site was just a load of old Richard the Third.
Posted by: Brit at March 2, 2004 11:45 AMThe political cartoons from early in his career are interesting, if you're into that sort of thing.
Posted by: Mike Earl at March 2, 2004 2:01 PMClever of him to subvert the tots that way.
I never read my kids Suess. Started 'em right out on Pogo.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 2, 2004 2:20 PM"No house could hold all of Ted's stuff" -- is that what your kids will say about you when the Orrin Judd Museum is opened?
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at March 2, 2004 5:25 PMHaving the "correct' political views vis a vis his association with the far left but short-lived PM newspaper in New York certainly didn't do anythng to hurt his career in contemporary litterary circles, though unlike so many today who seem to make based more on who they know that what they've done, Guisel's work though the mid-1960s stands up to scrutiny (though he did start to get a little too precocious as early as the 1950s, when Gerald McBoing Boing and the sequels were created by Guisel and the innovative -- but also left-leaning -- United Productions of America).
Posted by: John at March 2, 2004 6:33 PMIs there supposed to be some allusion in "Yertle the Turtle"? I always thought the oobleck sounded kind of European.
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 3, 2004 9:47 AM